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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25806328">Extraction</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightly_Refrain/pseuds/Nightly_Refrain'>Nightly_Refrain</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Arrow (TV 2012)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, F/M, Steampunk inspired, Vigilantism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:02:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,835</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25806328</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightly_Refrain/pseuds/Nightly_Refrain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Year: 1887 S.V. Location: Starling City. Despite coming from a wealthy merchant family, Oliver Queen ran his election on promises to help the disenfranchised commoners of Starling and restore the Glades, winning in a landslide. However, soon after becoming Mayor, not only has he failed to fulfill his campaign promises, but he’s thrown his support behind the Quadrant, the largest private security force in the city, using them to hide himself away from the discontented public.</p><p>Digg, unofficial leader of the loose vigilante community of Starling, has put together a team to extract the mayor in order to learn if he’d been deceiving the citizens all along or if he’s been coerced into cooperating.</p><p>That is, if White Canary, Arsenal, and Smokescreen can manage to get to him out.</p><p>Steampunk/D&amp;D inspired AU.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Extraction</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So I got this idea from a very specific media thing I consumed and it wouldn't leave me alone. Since its shorter than the other big idea that's on my list, I'm pushing it out first.</p><p>Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>John Diggle stood with his back to his desk, arms propping himself up, as he looked over the two lounging in front of him. Sara Lance was leaning back against one of the vertical duct columns in the small meeting room. She looked unconcerned, but the sharp look in her eyes and the tension in her crossed arms gave away her stress.</p><p>Roy Harper waited by the small table, sitting backwards in a chair facing John, fidgeting with a dagger and a scowl on his face. His displeasure with the mission was clear even before the briefing started. Digg knew it would be an argument to get him on board with this mission, but he wasn’t about to start arguing before the third member of the team showed up.</p><p>He checked his watch to see the big hand strike the hour. As though summoned, a figure came descended from a ceiling hatch to land neatly on her feet, metallic boots giving a solid <em>thunk</em> to her landing as her purple and black coat flared out slightly.</p><p>“Just in time, Smokescreen,” Digg greeted the artificer, used to her propensity for unusual entry points. As always, she kept her black googles in place despite being in the Mark of Four headquarters. Few of their members kept their identity as closely under wraps as she did. Frankly, some of the younger, more rash members could take lessons from her. He glanced at Sara, who’d become practically cavalier in the recent year after she handed the Black Canary mantel to her sister to become the White Canary. She, at least, was making the conscious choice to be more visible to the public, instead of just being cocky or foolish.</p><p>Roy had waited until he was in their meeting room to throw back his hood and pull down his googles. Digg hadn’t worn his helmet within this part of the headquarters since he assumed the mantle of Mark of Four leader, or at least as close as the loosely connected vigilante community of Starling City had to one. Not wearing his helmet was his way of showing his gratitude for their faith in him.</p><p>By nature, they weren’t, as a group, particularly inclined to authority, but he still helped coordinate, share information, and aid any members he could. They respected and listened to him in return, affording him a degree of support they wouldn’t give an ordinary member.</p><p>“You all got the mission brief sent your way?” Digg asked, despite knowing they had. After all, if they hadn’t received his message, they wouldn’t be here.</p><p>“Yeah, I got it,” Roy said with a scowl. “Why the hell should we rescue the two-faced mayor?”</p><p>“Good question.” Digg acknowledged, ignoring Roy’s tone. “As you know, Mayor Queen ran on a pretty progressive platform including to reduce crime and restore prosperity to the Glades, as well as to keep the larger players fighting for power in the city from growing stronger.</p><p>“However,” Digg sighed. “Since he took office, he hasn’t followed through on any of his proposed plans. Most recently, he’s backed a series of laws that seek to further disenfranchise the common people who supported his election.”</p><p>“I knew trusting an industry heir was a mistake,” Roy said, spiting on the ground to show his displeasure. “He decided to show his true colors and now Starling won’t get another chance to elect a mayor for ten years.”</p><p>“It doesn’t make any sense, the way Ol—the mayor is acting,” Sara said, clenching her fist. She wanted to at least appear objective, despite her friendship with the mayor. “Someone must be manipulating him.”</p><p>“How? Only thing guys like that care about is money. I guess, he’s got a sister, but she’s—” Roy cut himself off, scowling.</p><p>“Everyone here knows Thea Queen is Speedy,” Digg said, running a hand over his face. “She agrees with Canary, that someone must be blackmailing or controlling her brother in order to make him break his campaign promises like he is.”</p><p>“I know what she thinks,” Roy said, remembering the argument they’d had about the subject a few days ago. He hadn’t spoken to her since. “But the guy was gone for five years. She doesn’t know what that did to him. Even she’s admitted he’s been erratic since his return two years ago, that she doesn’t know him the way she used to.”</p><p>Roy and Thea had been getting close, flirting the line between friends and something more when they’d meet as Speedy and Arsenal, fighting over who wore red best. Even when he discovered her identity as a wealthy heir to one of the strongest legacy industry companies after her mother’s murder by Slade, they’d managed to keep moving forward. He’d been thinking seriously about asking her out when they’d had the fight about her brother.</p><p>“I’ve spoken to her as well,” Digg said, fighting to keep his face from revealing what else Thea had told him. “She wanted to be on this mission, but I convinced her that it was too dangerous because if she was captured, it would give Mayor Queen’s enemies another thing to use against him.”</p><p>“I was wondering how you’d persuaded her not to join us,” Sara said, a grin on her face as she idly twirled her bow staff. “She’s not going to sit on the sidelines much longer though. Her brother’s the only family she’s got left.”</p><p>“That’s why this mission needs to happen tonight,” Digg said decisively. “Before she goes off half-cocked on her own.”</p><p>“How much do we trust the information we’ve received?” Felicity spoke up for the first time since joining them, her voice disguise spell still active. It had taken her some time to come up with a good equipment-spell combination and now they were standard, built into all Mark of Four member’s masks—also primarily developed by her.</p><p>“We got intel from someone on the inside two days ago and it was in our code, with the right seals,” Digg said. He tapped the large blank sheet of paper held to the wall with magnets and ink revealed itself. “Blueprints of the Mayoral Mansion and detailed information regarding the position and timing of guard patrols. It’s been hard to get much to check against it, but it fits with all the other information we have managed to gather.”</p><p>All three vigilantes leaned forward, and Digg proceeded to outline the information the informant had managed to give them, gesturing to the maps and explaining the guard shift details. He noted that Smokescreen kept to herself that she’d already heard this information, when he initially approached her. Digg hadn’t expected her to decide she needed to come along in person, instead of just providing support as she usually did.</p><p>“Why us?” Sara asked, although she was pretty sure she knew. Besides knowing her own role as the muscle, Sara was also one of the few people who knew Oliver Queen was also the Arrow. That circle had widened recently when Thea had revealed it to Digg once Oliver escalated from only meeting her with Quadrant guards present for the last month to refusing to meet with her at all, a few days ago. They needed someone on the team who knew what he was capable of, both so he could help them and in case he decided he’d rather not be rescued—the fact that her civilian identity knew his own was a bonus.</p><p>“We need people with your skills,” was all Digg said before adding, “Also, when I told Speedy she couldn’t come on this mission, she requested both you, Canary, and you, Arsenal.”</p><p>“Me?” Roy asked, surprised Thea would trust him to rescue her brother when she was still pissed at him for saying the guy didn’t deserve to be rescued.</p><p>“She said you were the best thief she knew, even if you were an idiot,” Digg replied, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.</p><p>“Sounds like her,” Roy said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.</p><p>After a nod from Sara that he was welcome to share certain information with those present, Digg continued, “Canary knows the Queens from her younger days. Aside from her fighting prowess, we hope she’ll be able to help convince Queen to come with us.”</p><p>“And her?” Roy asked, jerking his chin at the other woman here. Sara turned to look at her too. When Oliver was still the Arrow, Smokescreen was one of his main partners, along with Digg as Spartan. But Smokescreen tended to help with planning, providing specially tailored artifacts, and with long distance scrying—she’d only been out in the field once or twice to Sara’s knowledge. Smoke had handled herself admirably, even taking an arrow meant for Sara, but these excursions into the field were exceptions Smokescreen hadn’t seemed keen on repeating. Oliver Queen’s strange behavior shouldn’t be enough to draw her into the field, not unless she knew he was also Arrow, which as far as Sara knew, she didn’t.</p><p>Maybe she was just doing this as a favor to Digg? Sara didn’t know Digg well enough to tell how he would have pitched this mission to Smokescreen without revealing Oliver’s identity, but she did know he wouldn’t have told Smokescreen, even if they were good friends, without Thea’s permission.</p><p>“Spartan came to me with the information gathered about the mayoral residence,” Felicity said, taking a step forward and gesturing to the map. “He initially wanted me to provide support, in terms of artifacts for your use, and scrying with my mirrors. However, per review of the information, I can tell there are too many holes in these schematics to trust your ability to fulfill the mission, even with long distance support. “</p><p>“A longstanding residence like the Mayoral Mansion is likely to have a lot of built in security features and traps that will need me to personally analyze and disarm with my skills. The whole building nearly has as many scrying wards as a Family house and the traps themselves are further obscured.” Felicity had spent the better part of the last two days determining just that. She could crack through given enough time, but given what Digg had told her, that was exactly what they didn’t have. “Without that knowledge ahead of time, sending you two, or even a larger team, without someone specialized to handle them in person is sending you to your death.”</p><p>“You really think security will be that tight?” Roy asked, intrigued and trying to bait Smokescreen into revealing more. Normally he hit wealthy industry households or highly paid servants and stayed away from political, military, or households of the Families precisely because of their security. He didn’t know much about Smokescreen, beyond that she helped develop his outfit and that his old mentor, Arrow, had held her in high regard before he’d quit. She seemed good at her job, but that didn’t mean he was ready to trust her in the field yet. “And if so, are we really not bringing anyone else in on this?”</p><p>“Yes, it is going to be that tight,” Felicity said decisively. Her confidence in her abilities came through clearly, even with the voice disguise spell altering it to sound mechanical. “I can handle it, but only if I go too.”</p><p>“And larger team would just increase the chances of drawing attention anyways,” Digg explained. “This is a stealth mission above all else. Quadrant security has stepped in to take over part of mayoral security and we don’t want to get into a lot of combat with them. Don’t forget: they win the numbers game. There’s a reason we operate from the shadows and don’t mount full on assaults against our enemies.”</p><p>“Mayor shouldn’t be contracting with private security,” Roy grumbled. “Bad enough there’s basically no public security anymore and Quadrant keeps driving the remaining small team competition out of town. Another year or two and they’ll have control over the whole city. No idea how the Families can’t see that they’re practically handing themselves over to Quadrant.”</p><p>“You know nobles,” Sara said, with a lazy stretch. “Only capable of seeing ten steps ahead —no chance of noticing what’s right in front of them unless its other nobles.”</p><p>“And the recently proposed law, which currently has the mayor’s support,” Digg replied, running a hand over his face. “Will only expand Quadrant’s position as the only real security game in Starling.”</p><p>“All the more reason to suspect Quadrant has something on Ollie that they’re using to manipulate him,” Sara said. She knew Oliver disliked the Quadrant and between his sudden friendliness towards them and his refusal to see Thea—she was more than convinced something bad was happening.</p><p>“But what?” Roy demanded. He’d only met Oliver Queen once and hadn’t gotten more of a read off of him beyond “scary older brother”. He’d heard a lot of rumors about Oliver Queen’s younger days before he got ship wrecked in the Unknown Sea before showing back up out of the blue two years ago. He’d seemed sincere enough when campaigning, but that just proved Oliver Queen was a good politician—not exactly a point in his favor as far as Roy was concerned. “Thea’s his only living relative and she’s fine. He doesn’t seem to have any friends or other interests. What could they have on him to force him to act this way?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Sara admitted. “That’s what doesn’t make sense here. Despite his reputation, Ollie doesn’t bend easily. I haven’t talked to him much since he began his campaign, in order to avoid any unwanted attention or ruin his reputation by linking Oliver to me and then to the White Canary, but I know he truly wanted to reform the city.”</p><p>“We’re taking yours and Speedy’s judgement on that,” Digg said. He was still trying to wrap his mind around what else Thea had revealed to convince him to put together this mission: that Oliver Queen was Arrow. Arrow had been his friend and confidant. Arrow was the one that got Digg into the Mark in the first place. Hell, Arrow was the one that kicked off a lot of the vigilante movement in the city and got it moving in a better direction.</p><p>However, Arrow had also been the one to step away from the life months ago without a good explanation to run for mayor, turning his back on all the good they’d done and abandoning the organization he helped create. Digg still felt the sting of betrayal from that.</p><p>And Digg didn’t know Oliver Queen at all.</p><p>Speaking of Arrow’s retirement, his eyes darted over to Smokescreen. He couldn’t get a good read on her and it was throwing him off more than he’d like to admit. He was fairly certain his former partner knew Oliver was the Arrow, that’d she’d had it figured out from the beginning given how she was acting about this mission and due to those goggles of hers.</p><p>For a vigilante known for making fantastical artifacts and a dislike of mysteries, she was exceptionally careful about keeping her own identity a secret. Digg hadn’t wanted to know who his partners were in the light, he knew them in the dark well enough to know that was their real selves, or so he’d thought. Then, after Slade and the Dark Archer were defeated, Arrow had announced his dissatisfaction with the way the Mark of Four operated. He seemed to think that even though they were more of an organization than ever before, capable of more good than ever, that it wasn’t enough.</p><p>Arrow and Smokescreen had fought hard about that, with her arguing not everyone could do much good as civilians, that they made a difference and were needed as they were. Arrow had disagreed, saying it was becoming too dangerous and came with too much collateral damage. Digg had flatly refused to leave the Mark or the vigilante life behind, but Smoke and Arrow had argued for what felt like hours about it.</p><p>The argument only ended when Arrow put forward that it was too dangerous a life for Smokescreen in particular, insinuating that she couldn’t handle herself. While Digg suspected Arrow hadn’t meant to imply that, it had been the final straw. Smokescreen had walked out. As far as Digg knew, that was the last time they’d spoken. She’d refused to discuss Arrow with him since.</p><p>“Regardless of the Mayor’s intentions,” Digg continued. “We’re extracting him tonight, before some other members who aren’t as convinced of his innocence decide to take him out in an ill-conceived plan to force a new election.”</p><p>“Who’s planning that?” Sara asked casually, for all that her eyes betrayed her displeasure with the idea.</p><p>“Doesn’t matter,” Digg said flatly. “We’re running this mission first. Any further questions?” When no one spoke up, he nodded and opened the door so they could plan privately, “Then I’ll leave you to it. Good luck tonight.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>My plan is to update every Saturday--here's hoping I can keep that schedule up. </p><p>Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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